Saturday, 1 April 2017

Turkish Eggs at THE TAPA ROOM; Travels in Tonga, Time & Space (pt 3)

May I present to you the Polynesian legend of ‘The Octopus and The
Rat’.. Some legends tell of intrepid heroes and dastardly villains, and their
epic duels across space and time. Some tell of deceitful deities, and their
tricks and schemes to bewitch humankind. Some tingle the spines of wide-eyed
children, and some devour the hearts of brave but stupid men. Some make you
laugh. Some make you weep. Some inspire nostalgia. And some make you glad to be
alive.

But this one doesn’t.

A rat and hermit crab are stranded at sea after a devastating shipwreck.
They go their separate ways. The rat then comes across an octopus. ‘Hullo,’
greets the octopus. They strike a bargain, which sees the octopus carry the rat
to a far-away island. But as the rat disembarks, he disingenuously craps on the
octopus’s head. And that is why octopuses have tubercles on their heads, and
that is why rats are their sworn enemies.

The End.

Do not say you were not forewarned. It contains no otherworldly beings
or mythical beasts. There is no overarching theme or cautionary tale. It begins
with a character utterly superfluous to the plot and climaxes in a quite random
and meaningless act. And the hostility between the two protagonists is
biologically inaccurate; they inhabit completely different ecosystems. As
legends go, it is, frankly, not a particularly good one. It doesn’t even make
sense.

But at least it’s a good introduction to my time in Tonga, a land that
similarly confounded a young naive medical student at the turn of the
Millennium. A faraway land replete with legend, a culture so different to my
own.

*

Replete with legend Tonga may be, but replete with fine cuisine, erm
perhaps less so. Still, food remains integral to Tongan society. And none more
so than its traditional feasts, a centuries-old cultural adhesive that binds
together families and communities, the young and the old.

Keen to experience at least one feast, I discovered that the capital’s
Tongan National Centre serve up a renown one especially for tourists. Since I
was only passing through town, I made sure to book some weeks ahead, mindful of
its reputed popularity.

When the day eventually came, I arrived there in eager anticipation. But
as I entered the building, all seemed strangely subdued. I stepped into the
cavernous hall, its silence brutally disturbed by my own echoing footsteps. The
room stretched vast before me, empty in all respects save for a small table
sitting incongruously in its centre, like a lost island amid a lonely sea. I
looked around confused. This can't be right.

“Hellooo?..” I called out tentatively, my voice carrying across the room
like an exploratory pulse of radar. From the shadows, a woman appeared and
slowly but purposefully approached.

“Welcome,” she said.

“Erm…I think I might be in the wrong place. I'm looking for the feast?”

“Are you Mr. Aaron?”

“Err, yes..”

“Well, yes, this is the feast..” She then gestured towards that
lonesome table in the centre of the room.

Despite being the only recipient, more and more dishes kept coming
through, brought out by a steady rotation of waitresses, each one pausing a
while to accompany me whilst I tucked in. I was genuine humbled by the sheer
effort made on my behalf, even it disconcertingly felt like the sort of
treatment more specifically reserved for the mafia.

Eventually, now full to bursting, it was time to bid farewell. But just
as I was levering myself up, a gentle South Sea melody began wafting down from
the stage in front and, from seemingly nowhere, a rotund bald-headed man
suddenly appeared with a guitar. He was soon followed by a steady stream of
gargantuan-sized men, all clad in skimpy sarongs, who proceeded to align
themselves in a curiously-specific arrow-head formation.

The guitarist then ceased his strumming and the room became unnervingly
silent, save for the sound of my own breath. I sat myself back down and stared
up at the imposing line of men, their faces impassive, waiting for who knows
what.

“Wooooaaaaaaah!!!” they shrieked in unison. I almost fell off my
chair in genuine shock. Their heads then began vibrating wildly, their tongues
thrashing about like spasmodic snakes, and their bodies jolting into a series
of menacing stances. “Huh huh huh wooooaaaaaah!!” hollered their staccato
grunts and primal shrieks.

A Tongan haka was certainly not your usual after-dinner
pick-me-up. And it didn't stop there - for now in glided a group of dancers,
gleaming in coconut oil, sprouting forth feathers and plumage from their hair
bands and bikini straps, swaying their hips rhythmically to a Polynesian beat.
They launched into a series of traditional Tongan dances - the lakalaka
line dance, the graceful tau'olunga, the kailao war dance, the
intricate ma'ulu'ulu… And after the dancing and singing, a full-on
fashion show - of course! - featuring a medley of models resplendent in
traditional costume.

Eventually, when the spectacle came to an end, all the performers
returned to the stage to accept my ardent, if conspicuously solitary, applause.
I left buoyed by this stirring introduction to Polynesian culture, not to
mention the incredible endeavour made for an audience of one. And, if nothing
else, at least I was now pretty au fait with the latest bridal designs coming
out of Tonga that season.

*

Of course, when the opportunity arose to attend an authentic feast, I
jumped right at it. And this one wasn't any old feast - Tonga’s Minister for
Health, no less, was hosting a 21st birthday party for his daughter. A convoy
from the Prince Wellington Ngu Hospital - my training base in Tonga - were
preparing to attend, and Lesieli, the island's midwife, kindly invited me
along.

So early one morning, we set out on the docks, catching a fishing boat
to the western island of Hunga. When we arrived, the feast already appeared in
full swing. A brass band played some Tongan classics. Four rows of tables,
bedecked in balloons and wrapped in ribbons, stretched under canvas awning.

We sat cross-legged on pandanus mats whilst mountains of freshly-caught
fish rose up from the tables, accompanied by the standard Tongan fare and
gallons of gaudy Royal Islands orange soda.

Halfway through the proceedings, the crowd came to a sudden hush, and
four men stood up. They were preachers, and each one addressed the audience
with a long sermon - certainly a far cry from my own 21st birthday night out,
that's for sure. In fact, for a celebratory gig, they spoke strangely
furiously, each one climaxing in a frenzy of hellfire and brimstone, literally
brandishing bibles to embellish their points.

Then, in stark contrast to what had just come before, a troupe of
scantily-clad dancers began strutting out onto the village green. But before I
could get too perplexed ruminating over Tonga’s seemingly paradoxical
anthropological dualism of church and tribe, the performers manoeuvred
themselves into the sensuous tau’olunga dance. The crowd cheered in
joyous approval. Some older women stood up and donated their own version,
trilling a gleeful “Weeee-haaaa!” to rapturous applause.

Quite unexpectedly, the guests then began descending on the birthday
girl, adorning her oiled body with dollar-bills. Not wanting to miss out on any
a Tongan custom - and especially not this most fascinating ritual of fakapale
- it was a real shame I'd not brought along any notes. Coins I had, but what
use would they be?

But just then Lesieli shoved a note into my hand and urged me forwards.
Well, when in Rome.. But as I approached, the locals suddenly noticed the palangi
in their midst, and found my attempts to join in uniquely hilarious. I was now
the source of much mirth and attention, and I promptly blushed with
self-consciousness.

They relentlessly urged me through the crowd towards the birthday girl,
clamouring as I struggled to find a patch of exposed oiled skin. A glisten
appeared on her shoulder, guiding my hand as I coyly stuck on the dollar bill,
before retreating red-faced back to Lesieli.

But when I sat down, the sturdy midwife again thrusted another note into
my hand, and shoved me with some force back into the spotlight. I stumbled
about clumsily, but now the birthday girl’s skin was literally covered in
dollar-bills, and there was no obvious modest place to aim for.

Suddenly, a quite excitable elderly woman leapt up and, evidently having
lost patience with my own dithering, grabbed my note-clenched hand and slapped
it unashamedly across the birthday girl's chest. The crowd went wild. Well, all
except her father, the esteemed Minister for Health: he didn't seem so amused. Gulp!
I ran back to my place, praying to God that Lesieli had run out of cash.

Once the festivities were over, our convoy then paid visits to various
houses, inside which families had prepared their birthday gifts of tapa. This
traditional cloth - crafted from the inner bark of the mulberry tree and
decorated with geometric designs or recurring motifs - is more than just a
textile or fancy decoration. In Tonga, it's an important status symbol.

Indeed, the Minister’s noble lineage merited that the scrolls need be
particularly expansive and exceptional - each gift would’ve taken literally
hundreds, if not thousands, of hours to make. Many were the size of whole
carpets, and once on show for a while, were then carefully rolled up and
carried off to the birthday girl’s home. The bizarre procession wound its way
through the village like a curious parade of carpet salesman. The guests, on
offering their wares to the Minister, supplicated him with apologies and other
self-deprecating comments, as per Tongan custom.

Before too long, our convoy headed off back home, Lesieli still
chuckling merrily at the thought of the befuddled palangi, dollar-bill
clutched despairingly in hand.

*

There aren't many places in the UK where you can see tapa cloth up
close. But The Providores and Tapa Room is one such place, a London
landmark of global/fusion cuisine. With a wonderful ream of tapa bedecking the
back wall - a nod to head-chef Peter Gordon’s New Zealand roots - it's a space
in the metropolis where my heart’s immediately transported back to Tongan rural
island villages.

So it goes without saying that the Tapa Room’s standout dish is
none other than.. Turkish Eggs. Of course it is. I mean Turkey and Tonga are so
closely bound up with each other, like in.. erm.. the arbitrarily alphabetical
way they line up alongside each other in the Olympics’ opening parade. And
perhaps their ambassadors sit together in the United Nations? Maybe they
scribble little notes to each other and, if the speeches get really
dull, entertain themselves with a surreptitious game of finger-football with a
leftover Ferrero Rocher.

Anyway, despite the incongruous juxtaposition of the two cultures in
this one London eaterie, I'm still glad they're Turkish Eggs and not Tongan
Eggs, since its cuisine is arguably not one of Tonga’s most enticing features.
But Turkish cuisine.. ah, well that's a different story altogether.

In this dish, two poached eggs come cradled in whipped yoghurt, the
creamy whiteness of both quite possibly a mystical glance into heaven. Actual
heaven. In the meantime, floating on top sits an oily orange pane of liquid
chilli butter, like a homage to the River Styx, portal to the fiery underworld.

I love how food generously allows us to project onto it whatever ideas,
images and narratives we desire. So, as well as this culinary depiction of the
afterlife, this dish could also resemble a Turkish spa, with its assortment of
brightly-coloured anointing oils and luscious white creams. Or, perhaps
returning to the South Pacific: a tropical island of snowcapped peaks shrouded
in white billowing clouds, surrounded by seas of hallucinatory colour - the oil
also redolent of the coconut-oil gleam from those traditional Tongan dancers.

And even if the classic eggs-and-chilli combo can be found the world
over - from Mexican huevos rancheros to Malaysian nasi lemak - no
other version beats this one, at least not in “the closest a vegetarian is ever
gonna get to a coronary episode” stakes. Meanwhile a side of crunchy charred
sourdough toast delightfully cuts through all that creamy unctuousness. As does
a cup of coffee - dark, deep and complex - from Volcano’s small-batch
roastery in South London.

These Turkish Eggs are now arguably an iconic London dish. And justly
so. Just next time you come, do take a moment to enjoy the tapa, and reflect on
the joy of living in a city where two such contrasting cultures can be so
seamlessly brought together. And that's why I love London so much.

And so concludes my Tonga Trilogy, at least for now.. If you haven't yet
read Part 1 (“Ceviche”), where I inadvertently find myself at the controls of a
commercial aircraft, or Part 2 (“108 Garage”), where a wedding party strap a
whole suckling pig onto the back of my moped, please do feel free to click and
take a look!

Thanks so much Seetal - really appreciate the feedback. Was only gonna do the one Tonga post, and link it to the Tapa Room. But then there were the other stories I wanted to include, so it became a trilogy. Then I had to work out which London venues to link up with! There are still a fair few more stories, so may well be another Tongan "top-up" at some stage..

Aaron,I'm on a train home reading this and honestly have sat here grinning the whole time I read your tales here, such that I am getting weird looks! Your tale of the feast for one is quite possibly the funniest elective story I have ever heard & I am blushing on your behalf for the more than awkward exchange with the birthday girl!:-D

Thanks so much for your comments, Shikha! It was such a surreal, unexpected and touching experience. In fact, Tonga seemed to offer many! It's great to have these elective clinical placements as a way of getting to know a place. (Where did you go?) Thanks again! :)